Scored again today, hopefully he can carry on the form and return to us a revitalised player and happy to stay here. Maybe greedy **** dropping him just as he hit form in favour of new signings turned his head a bit, could have lost respect a bit and might be happier to play under Bambi. I think he's a better option than McLean anyway..
Just posted this on another thread before you started this one: "Simpson scored again for Millwall today, but they lost 2-1 to Bristol City leaving Millwall 2 places and 2 points above the drop zone. I wonder whether Simpson would rather stay with a London club that could be playing 1st Div football next season or come back up north to us?"
Yes he scored ,but overall he was pretty poor and hardly involved in the game in the second half. I hope he stays at Millwall he doesn't put in half the effort McClean displays in both attack and defense.
Tap in from 6 yards, did nowt else except blaze one over from about 8 yards. Nicky Maynard looked ok though.
We all know I've been through the motions a hundred times in my support for Simpson, here goes number 101: (it's 'McLean' by the way) Craig ***an put in a lot of effort, and look where it got him. McLean is better than ***an obviously, but the point still remains. Would you rather have McLean sprinting around 24/7, scoring 8 goals a season, or Simpson, actually doing the only important thing, PUTTING THE BALL IN THE BACK OF THE NET, scoring perhaps 12? I know his record with us wasn't great, 6 goals last season, but you can pretty much write off the first half of that, he had no service and literally missed about 2 good chances in 20 games.. Fryatt would have done the same. Plus his goals per game ratio was made to look worse by several 87+ minute substitute appearances. I'm not suggesting he's Premier League quality or that he's the best striker we have.. All I'm asking is that we give him another chance. Bring him back in January. Rotate according to form with Fryatt and McLean until the summer. Then make the decision. He's still only young(ish), why rush the sale and then discover we sold a real gem for less than a million?
I think we'll struggle to tempt Jay away from London, regardless of the manager situation. If homesickness was an issue for him or his family while he was up here i can't see him entertaining coming back here. Shame as we saw when he linked up with Stewart last season the player he can be but it's not gonna work out.
i agree with you, but cant write about the subject without it turning into a mclean rant, and im trying to stay positive and happy after over a year of having my soul slowly sucked out by negative nige
Simpson is a similar player to Fryatt and I would rather have Matty any day of the week! Jay didn't become a bad player over night and his form for us must have been largely to do with being unsettled off the pitch. I think if Millwall offer a half decent sum, we will offload him and loan/buy another striker in January
Perhaps, but I'd still rather not rush into a sale. Bring him back for 6 months, see how it pans out. He's not on big wages and with Waggy going back, we're short on strikers, so it's worth a go, especially when our top priorities should be a new permanent keeper and a covering centre-half, or even one to replace Chester if needs be (God forbid)
Unless he's adamant he wants to stay 'dahn sarf', in which case I can't see NB wanting to force him to be here. Then again, Jay S might feel different, now NP has gone...?
That was my point, really. I wasn't saying that whether he wants to go on not, keep him. If he wants to stay dahn sarf then let him go, but if he's happy to stay then let's give him half a season before getting only a nominal fee for him, we might live to regret it.
I agree with the last paragraph but it always annoys me when people judge strikers solely on goals. If Simpson scored 12 to McLean's 8 but McLean made up for it with hard work involving others then Simpson isn't necessarily better. Also your argument about Simpson not missing many chances in that first half of last season is pretty invalid. He went through on goal against Palace and Preston away with half the pitch to run at the goal and both times failed to even get a shot on target. Those two alone were absolute shockers, I'm sure there were other less notable ones too. Anyway I kind of agree with you that he should be given a chance if Waggy goes back as expected. It'll cost us loads to get anyone better.
I know that there are other important things along with goals, but running around non-stop for 90 minutes matters little if he at least doesn't get an assist or two out of it. I probably exaggerated when it came to Simpsons chances but I don't really remember him missing much.. and as for the Preston game, forgive me if my recollection but wasn't he at a little bit of an angle, and he hit it with his left foot and it cracked the post? Not a terrible miss considering misses such as McLean from an open goal 6 yards out last season!
I made a similar point at the end of last season when people were moaning about McLean's lack of goals but I appeared to be in a minority of 1. Heskey has never been a prolific scorer, and although I don't have any stats to back this up, I don't recall him being credited with a vast amount of assists. But his work in harrying defenders into mistakes, muscling defenders, work rate off the ball etc he created space and chances for his co-strikers. I seem to recall Michael Owen said that Heskey was the striker he enjoyed playing with most (although I may be wrong on that). If by his workrate and effort McLean creates space and chances for his fellow strikers I'd be happy with that (although more goals would even better)
McLean's was indeed awful bit Simpson had the entire half to come inside if he needed to and decided to stay out wide with angle tight took it right up to the keeper's nose before hitting it off the outside of the post and wide. It was pretty damn bad. It doesn't matter though, I'm just being a bit fussy, I actually agreen with you on giving him another chance. There are things he does a lot better than McLean and Fryatt, such as simply standing in the 6 yard box when the ball is likely to come, where Fryatt and McLean would be waiting on the egde of the area or something, that's why he gets so many tapins.
Yes, his anticipation and awareness seems far better. It bugs me when people say 'it was only a tap-in' - it's often anticipation and not pure luck that results in them. Van Nistelrooy scored 25+ goals per season with Man Utd, and I barely recall him scoring anywhere further out than the penalty spot.
Good point. Lineker was the same. I think when he took a penalty it was classed as a long range effort!!
We can defend strikers on their work rate all day long, but if we have 10 players running round working hard making chances and nobody sticking them in the net we might as well not bother making them in the first place.
